Now there's a stunner...
The REAL problem with this is that America's NUMBER ONE export is financial services - not autos, or DVD players, or IPods, etc... The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg just Laid a Turd instead... and in a few short years there will be FAR FEWER folks to hate in the financial services game.
America will just have to go back to hating lawyers.
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Speaking of Lawyers...
Our nation's top export is finance and the US$. Yet, instead of electing financiers, economists, and business people, we hired another Lawyer to oversee the greatest economic crisis the world has ever seen. (Think the 1930's deserves that title? Consider that economic crisis frequently leads to conflict... and that in the 1930's the world was devoid of nuclear weapons... now we are SWIMMING in nuclear weapons, with nutty folks that are quite sure of circumstances in the "afterlife" now in possession.) We did not hire him for his economic training or his business experience... WE hired him because he is good looking, well spoken, pro-choice, and black.
Now I appreciate good looking people as much as the next guy (I think Michelle Obama provides an excellent example to American women as to what one's physique should look like in your forties after 2 kids. Keep the sleeveless look coming, Michelle)... After GWB, anybody that could string a couple of sentences together would be appealing... The fact that the Choice issue dominates our politics at a time like this speaks volumes I won't even address... and being an ethnic mutt from the working class, I enjoy watching a fellow mutt make good....
What does any of that have to do with the the skill set needed to guide us through the credit/economic unwind and the shift in energy? Not a bloody thing. But it scripts well in our infotainment culture. Just think, our very own "White House Reality Show".
Unfortunately, the reality of actually governing is proving a bit more difficult than campaigning and organizing in the era of youtube speeches and Yes We Can('t) rhetoric.
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Ever wonder what the heck the talking heads are talking about...?? Leading economic indicators, etc... It is worth clicking the link and reading the report.
You will find the report at that link, updated in the third weak of each month.
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Here's a thought for any and all "confiscate and give away" Liberals out there:
If you raise taxes, tax payers will simply resort to criminal tax avoidance. Now, you will have to hire lots of (very conservative) Law Enforcement types to point deadly weapons at these "criminals", lawyers to defend and prosecute them, judges to judge them, and guards to guard them, etc... (I could go on forever here, right down to the children of the "criminals" that will lose a parents financial support once the system reduces their parent to penury, and all of the cycles derived therefrom). I have not researched the number of violent conflicts arising out of poor taxing policy, but if memory serves that number is not insignificant.
The Law of Unintended Consequences applies in all things, everywhere... but especially in policy. Just look at what the politicos from the 1970's San Francisco City Hall have done to California's economy... and now they have their sights set on the rest of us.
Mentatt (at) yahoo
10 comments:
Obama wasn't hired for his experience, or because of his cute kids or lovely wife. Obama was a cry for help .. pure and simple. His logical, lawyerly ways will serve him well as a politician, but if we are in extraordinary times, I doubt anyone is going to have the "schtick" to get us thru this unharmed. He has become our sacrificial lamb ... our messiah.
Also, there is only one cop for every 1,000 people in the U.S. (5 in Chicago), and even fewer people in the courts & prison industries. Going around the law is inevitable with higher prices and taxes, and I doubt there is much the law enforcement community can do about it.
American hates Wall Street is another manifestation of the deep adolescent attitudes in US culture.
Wall Street just did what any group of 14 yo males are going to do when the teacher leaves the room.
Kevin Phillips discussion of financialized economies and late stage empires should be a warning for the US.
We need to start making things of real value again, not bets and hedges against the other guy down the street going bust.
What we have here is a problematic. That's what I used to tell my kids when they were in college and wanted me to co-sign for them so they could buy a car which they swore they would keep in insurance, gas, etc... You don't have JOB. You can't do it. I won't do it. I watched Obama three times today make promises. Once to auto makers-he's not really done helping them out, then to healthcare-it's going to take billions but we must, then to the Paki/Afgani mess, billions more to build them schools and so on not to mention the military build up. A problematic in my opinion. They could pull the gold from our teeth and they still have a problematic.
Obama is ok. He is one of the brightest and best. And he has a conscience with true caring for the citizens of this country. Maybe still a way down the learning curve.
Unfortunately he will be swept away in the financial/resource/geopolitical uber-storm that has been building for a several decades.
Though I don't cheat myself, my heart is with all the tax dodgers. The taxes we pay are obsecne. It's an act of civil disobedience.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Now, Coal Guy, as I have mentioned in past posts, 80% of Federal income goes to five hugely popular programs that include: social security, medicare, medicaid (if only to keep the sickly poor out of our back yards), Defense and interest on the national debt (which must be paid). We can argue about the state, county and city taxes (don't like fire departments?), but when people know exactly where their (Federal) tax money goes, they want it to go there ... all of it.
Hey, Jeffers, you oughta do a piece about the Jim Cramer/John Stewart bit on Comedy Central, and how Poor Cramer was unable to tell all the people watching that if you don't understand the RISK you are getting into investing in stocks (and CNBC is too much "stock cowboy" for you), there is a place for you to invest .. it is called an FDIC-insured savings account. I haven't seen anyone defending the "Cramers" of the world on CNBC this time around.
Bureaucrat:
You mention that 5% of the earners pay all the taxes... and then in another breath you mention that all of our federal money is spent on 5 VERY POPULAR programs...
Of course they are popular! The people receiving the benefit are NOT PAYING FOR IT!!!!!
The 5% don't have the same resources and the TAX RECEIVERS are growing exponentially - and we all know where that is heading...
Yep, the top 5% pay 60% of the Federal income taxes in the U.S. And the bottom 80% (especially the elderly) benefit from it. But the rich benefit from this system too. Very unlikely there will be a Chavez-style communist takeover in America, where the rich lose everything. And their kids rarely join the military. It's a small price to pay for being able to sleep soundly at night. And the rich should get ready cause they (we) will be paying even more soon. :)
All true:
And besides the point. The bubble driven concentration of wealth is OVER. Over the next few years the "rich" will be far less so without any help from the government.
Addicting people to handouts is NOT the answer, unless the answer you are looking for is how to get votes...
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